Son Finds Mother After 11 Years Apart Nursing Home Employee Helps Resident Find Family In California

December 12, 1991|By MARIA ELENA FERNANDEZ, Staff Writer

POMPANO BEACH -- After 11 years, the voice on the other end of the telephone line sounded just as John Ringer remembered it:

``She was so nice, you know, soft,`` Ringer said. ``She was laughing about getting fatter and having gray hair. Then she asked me if I was still plump. Yeah, she was the same. She was the same.``

She was his mother.

Ringer last spoke with her in 1980, before an accident left him comatose for three weeks and permanently paralyzed. Since then Ringer, now 35, has been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes in Broward County and out of contact with his family in California.

``I was too emotional,`` Ringer said. ``I thought maybe (my mother) would reject me. I don`t know, something like that. I`ve been afraid to get close to her. Besides, I didn`t know where to find my family and nobody else would pay for the phone bill so that I could call California.``

Ringer said he probably would never have spoken with his mother if it were not for Myrna Lord, director of social services at Colonial Palms East, the Pompano Beach nursing home where Ringer lives.

``He never wanted to tell me where his family lives,`` Lord said. ``One day he finally told me her name and that she lived in Northern California.``

Lord tried two telephone numbers listed in the same last name but did not find Ringer`s mother. So she asked Ringer for another clue. He gave her the name of a restaurant where one of his sisters had worked. A man there put her in touch with Ringer`s mother and stepfather on Nov. 26.

``I`m a parent of three grown children and I thought about how it would be to lose touch with your kids like that,`` Lord said. ``I thought about how he was feeling, not knowing what to expect from her, and decided to try it out. I asked him for permission before I called her. She was stunned.``

Ringer had moved to Florida with his father in 1974 after his mother remarried. His father died in 1981 and his mother, Nancy Martin, had no way of reaching her son in Florida.

After not hearing from him for some time, Martin assumed Ringer was dead.

``It`s devastating,`` said Martin from her home in California. ``What`s happened to him is so bad, and I`m feeling that all this time I didn`t know and I wasn`t there to support him and help him through it. It was wonderful talking to him, though. I love John very much and I can`t wait to go see him.``

Details of the injuries that led to Ringer`s paralysis are unclear. When he arrived at North Broward Medical Center in May 1980, he was in a coma and had several skull fractures and a severe brain injury.

Some hospital medical records say Ringer was struck by a car; others say he was beaten.

Ringer tells two different stories. In one version, he and two friends were stopped by people in a van who invited them to a party. After they got in the van, they were beaten and thrown out. In another version, Ringer and two friends were assaulted by members of a gang and left to die.

``When he first came here, he was quite depressed and unwilling to share a lot of information,`` Lord said. ``He`s given me the story in bits and pieces, but we are not really sure what happened. All I know is that he`s going to have to live in a facility like this for the rest of his life, and his family had no idea he was here.``

Since Martin found out her son is alive, she has called him twice and sent him gifts. The first was a basket of flowers and balloons and the second was a collage of his baby pictures.

Nurses at Colonial Palms East said they have noticed a marked difference in Ringer`s attitude since his mother re-entered his life.

``He would never give you direct eye contact and his reponses were always short,`` Lord said. ``Now, look at him, he`s got a permanent grin on. He`s another person.``

Ringer, who was admitted to North Broward Medical Center last week because he suffers from psoriasis, said the only thing on his mind is his mother`s planned visit in February.

Martin also is preparing herself for the reunion.

``I want to be able to handle myself in front of him,`` Martin said. ``I`m not angry with him for not calling. I think he was trying to let me go on with my life, to shield me from what he was going through. He was always a very loving boy.``